1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to playback of media items and, more particularly, to management of playback of media items on a client computing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, jukeboxes have been installed at restaurants or entertainment venues to provide music to patrons. Patrons typically insert money into a slot on a jukebox and then are entitled to select one or a few songs to be played by the jukebox. The songs are play back by the jukebox in the order they are selected.
Today, music management and playback programs, such as iTunes™ from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., allow users to make playlists of songs. Thereafter, users can select a playlist for playback and have the music management and playback program play back the songs from the selected playlist. However, once a playlist is playing, if a user selects a particular song to be played, the currently played song of the playlist is stopped and the new song is played. After the song has played, the playback stops until the user selects another song or playlist for playback.
While the music management and playback programs operate on personal computers (such as desktop computers, portable computers, or netbooks), portable media players, such as MP3 players (e.g., iPod™ from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.), can operate to playback songs in a similar manner. Portable media players storage many songs or movies that users can select for playback by the portable media players. However, portable media players operate through graphical user interfaces to permit users to select a song or movie for playback. Once the song or movie is selected, playback of the selected song or movie is initiated. However, while the selected song or movie is being played, users are not able to select subsequent songs or movies to be played. Specifically, if users select another song or movie to be played, the currently played song or movies is stopped and then playback of the newly selected song or movies is initiated.
Therefore, there is a need for improved approaches to manage or coordinate playback of digital media assets.